Final Project: Media Literacy Crisis PSA

Annotated Bibliography

Lewin, T. (2010, January 20). If your kids are awake, they're probably online. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/education/20wired.html

Those ages 8 to 18 spend more than seven and a half hours a day with such devices…And that does not count the hour and a half that youths spend texting, or the half-hour they talk on their cellphones. And because so many of them are multitasking — say, surfing the Internet while listening to music — they pack on average nearly 11 hours of media content into that seven and a half hours.

Hobbs, R. (1998). The seven great debates in the media literacy movement. Journal of Communication, 16. Retrieved from http://myweb.wwu.edu/karlberg/444/readings/sevendebates.pdf

Students [need] practice analyzing the texts that are part of their ordinary viewing experience. If children can be taught to deconstruct media texts, the magic mantra goes, then they won't be taken in by the fantasy, seduced by the violence, or manipulated by commercial ploys. Media education, in this scenario, is the pedagogic equivalent of a tetanus shot.

nb5619. (2010, October 25). Learn critical thinking through media literacy education [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://medialiteracycolloquium.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/learn-critical-thinking-through-media-literacy-education/

Her book applies critical thinking to five media literacy questions (Summers, 2005, pp. 8-9):

1)    Who created the message? – This helps students think about the author, his/her point of view, and the intended audience.

2)    What is the message? – “Thinking skills include investigation of writing style, word choice, and image; determination of whether the message is fact or opinion, fiction or nonfiction” and more.

3)    How was the message delivered? – This can focus on the context and genre of the message and how it captures audience attention.

4)    What is the impact of the message on me? – This involves personal reflection, helping students judge the reliability of the message.

5)    What is the impact of the message on society? – This helps students to “draw conclusions, make inferences, predict, and judge the worth of a message.”

It is beneficial to all participating: students develop critical thinking skills and learn about media literacy; students use their critical thinking skills to score higher on standardized tests; school districts therefore have stronger test scores and more government funding. It is a cycle that teachers must take part in. Rather than teaching facts, teachers can use Lockwood’s ideas to give students something more valuable than good test scores; they can impart critical thinking skills through media literacy education.

Worsnop, C. M. (1989). Media literacy through critical thinking. Ontario: Queen’s Printer.Retrieved from http://depts.washington.edu/nwmedia/sections/nw_center/curriculum_docs/stud_combine.pdf

Here is a partial list of media:

ß Movies, radio, video, television, theater, recorded music

ß Newspapers, magazines, junk mail, advertising, comic books

ß Computer software, video games, the Internet

The following are examples of media texts in popular culture:

ß Coffee shops, including the pictures, posters, room layout, even the logos on

their products;

ß Sports events, including all the souvenirs used to promote and celebrate

sports and sports personalities.

Media Literacy Project. (n.d.). Language of persuasion. Retrieved from http://medialiteracyproject.org/language-persuasion

The goal of most media messages is to persuade the audience to believe or do something. Hollywood movies use expensive special effects to make us believe that what we’re seeing is real. News stories use several techniques – such as direct quotation of identified sources – to make us believe that the story is accurate.

The media messages most concerned with persuading us are found in advertising, public relations and advocacy. Commercial advertising tries to persuade us to buy a product or service. Public relations (PR) "sells" us a positive image of a corporation, government or organization. Politicians and advocacy groups (groups that support a particular belief, point of view, policy, or action) try to persuade us to vote for or support them, using ads, speeches, newsletters, websites, and other means. These "persuaders" use a variety of techniques to grab our attention, to establish credibility and trust, to stimulate desire for the product or policy, and to motivate us to act (buy, vote, give money, etc.) We call these techniques the "language of persuasion.”

They’re not new; Aristotle wrote about persuasion techniques more than 2000 years ago, and they’ve been used by speakers, writers, and media makers for even longer than that. Learning the language of persuasion is an important media literacy skill. Once you know how media messages try to persuade you to believe or do something, you’ll be better able to make your own decisions.

Some persuasive techniques are:

1.       Bandwagon

2.       Celebrity

3.       Experts

4.       Repetition

5.       Testimonials, and so on

Week Fourteen: Finished Digital Story

Double Entry Journal 13

Question 1: Should media education have an explicit political and ideological agenda?

           I believe that media education should have an explicit political and ideological agenda, because media education should incorporate the inner workings of the things that students see through a variety of multi-media sources. This way, students will be able to gather information and be able to aptly apply it to whatever decisions they may make on the subject. We want our students to be critical thinkers, and not people who follow the crowd. Popular culture would be an excellent tool to help attract students to the curriculum. It’s something they know, and it makes the subject material relevant to their daily lives.

Question 2: Based on your reading to date in this course, would you teach critical media literacy in the classroom?  Why or why not? 

            I don’t think I would teach all of the subject matter necessary to inform and create critical thinkers in the classroom; it would take a whole semester to cover everything. However, I would incorporate certain aspects in my class, such as what Hobbs’s stated in his article as “key concepts that are essential instructional points to be explored whenever media texts are used in the classroom (Hobbs, 1998):

1.      Media messages are constructed

2.      Media messages are produced within economic, social, political, historical, and aesthetic contexts

3.      The interpretative meaning-making processes involved in message reception consist of an interaction between the reader, the text, and the culture

4.      Media have unique “languages,” characteristics which typify various forms, genres, and symbol systems of communication

5.      Media representations play a role in people’s understanding of social reality”

These concepts are the essential to media literacy instruction within the classroom. We, as teachers, must be able to help students analyze multi-media sources they use and see every day. In order to “prepare students for the emerging information age, we must help them comprehend and communicate through both traditional and emerging technologies” (Semali, 2001).

There is media out there that tells students how to dress, behave, feel, and how much they should weigh. These negative influences that diminish students’ self-esteem need to be sifted out in a safe environment, such as a classroom. Teachers can educate students on media literacy by introducing them to the following questions that they should ask themselves when facing a media outlet (nb5619, 2010):

1.      Who created the message?

2.      What is the message?

3.      How was the message delivered?

4.      What is the impact of the message on me?

5.      What is the impact of the message on society?

“Critical literacy gives individuals power over their culture and thus enables people to create their own meanings and identities and to shape and transform the material and social conditions of their culture and society” (Kellner & Share, 2005).

Reference:

Hobbs, R. (1998). The seven great debates in the media literacy movement. Journal of Communication. 48 (1) p.16

Kellner, D., & Share, J. (2005). Toward critical media literacy: Core concepts, debates, organizations, and policy. Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 26(3), 369-386. Retrieved from nb5619. (2010, October 25). Learn critical thinking through media literacy education [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://medialiteracycolloquium.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/learn-critical-thinking-through-media-literacy-education/

nb5619. (2010, October 25). Learn critical thinking through media literacy education [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://medialiteracycolloquium.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/learn-critical-thinking-through-media-literacy-education/

Semali, L. (2001, November). Defining new literacies in curricular practice. Reading Online, 5(4). Available: http://www.readingonline.org/newliteracies/lit_index.asp?HREF=semali1/index.html

Week Twelve: Digital Story

Double Entry Journal 11

Quote:

“some of the purposes driving the uses of digital tools in this course:

• building social relationships 
• learning argumentative writing
• collaboratively constructing responses to media texts
• critically analyzing media representations 
• analyzing genre conventions in print and media texts
• understanding how audiences construct meanings through media ethnographies”

(Beach, 1953)

Reaction:

It seems like you would have to have an entire semester class that focuses on digital and media literacy, in order to cover all the aspects and skills needed to understand and decipher the literature that is presented to our students daily. I find it hard to pick out the key concepts of what students should learn about media literacy. Ultimately, they need to know what they can and cannot believe, and how to find out the truth when they are given information.

Reference:

Beach, R. (1953). An american perspective: justifying uses of digital tools to foster critical media literacy. The Journal of Media Literacy, Retrieved from http://www.journalofmedialiteracy.org/index.php/current-issue/145-an-american-perspective-justifying-uses-of-digital-tools-to-foster-critical-media-literacy

Related Resource:

I found a website that is a good resource for teachers who want to use digital tools within their curricula:

Digital Tools for Teachers

Digital tools for teachers [Web log message]. (2011, July 17). Retrieved from http://digitaltoolsforteachers.blogspot.com/

Week Eleven: Storyboard